Sandy said, "An ichthyologist is a fish expert."
"We just know subs," explained Remo.
"I am the fish expert," said Chiun.
"What's your specialty?"
"Eating them."
Sandy looked twice to see if he were joking. His face was a wrinkled map without any humor in it. She decided he was some kind of inscrutable humorist and turned her attention back to the waters below.
Under her breath she cursed softly and feelingly. "God damn these fucking fishermen."
"You have the mouth of a fishwife," said the elderly Asian.
"Keep your opinions to yourself. I have a job to do, and so have you. Like we say, 'You have to go out, but you don't have to come back.'"
"That the Coast Guard motto?" asked Remo.
"No. Our motto is Semper Paratus. Always Ready."
"Be ready to call out if you spot that sub."
"Like I said, keep out a weather eye for your stinking sub and I'll do the same for my pain-in-the-ass fishing boat."
"You have a salty tongue," said Chiun. "Perhaps you should spare our gracious ears and still it."
"Stow it," said Sandy. "I spend half my time policing fishermen who are either breaking maritime law or getting their screws caught in foul weather. They've dragged their nets along the ocean floor until it's as barren of life as the moon and won't be satisfied until they've eaten every last fish in the sea."
"The greedy swine," said Chiun.
"Damn right," said Sandy, stationing herself beside a port and taking up a clipboard and binoculars.
Remo took the opposite porthole and hoped the jet didn't have to ditch. The last thing he wanted to do was go for another enforced swim.
Chapter 15
Sea gulls swooped and wheeled in the sunless sky. From time to time they dipped and splashed their wingtips against the gray Atlantic, then lifted up again with flapping sardines in their sharp bills.
And far above them, the Master of Sinanju was counting his grievances.
"I was promised char," he lamented.
"Char?"
"Arctic char," said Chiun, consulting a ricepaper scroll on his lap. "Twenty weights suitable for salt curing. Char is best eaten dry." His right index finger, capped by a filigreed horn of jade, tapped the slashing Korean characters on the scroll. "Cod and croaker were promised. Pollock and pogy, shad and salmon from both great oceans. Sea bass. Sea bream. Mullet and menhaden. Trout and tilapia. Lemon sole and ling. Swordfish exceeding the length of a tall man."
"No shark?" asked Remo.
"Of course not."
"Good. I hate shark. I never want to eat it again."
"You smell of shark."
"That's one reason why I hate it."
They were over the Atlantic now. The Coast Guard Falcon jet flew low. The pilot paid them no heed, and neither did Coast Guard Lieutenant Sandy Heckman, much to Remo's surprise.
"You know," he confided to Chiun, "she doesn't seem to be attracted to me."
"Why should she be? You stink of carrion sango."
"I showered."
"Sango exudes from your pores. It is inescapable."
Remo glanced toward Lieutenant Heckman curiously. So far she hadn't expressed a single ounce of interest in him. That was pretty unusual, especially these days. For almost as long as Remo had been under Chiun's tutelage, he had exerted a powerful effect on women. It had gotten worse in the past year or so-to the point where Remo was fighting them off. Sometimes literally. He'd gotten so tired of it he decided to go with the flow and ask them out first.
So far it hadn't been very successful. The one woman who hadn't tried to jump his bones from a cold start turned out to be gay.
Remo was starting to wonder about Lieutenant Heckman.
Remo wandered over to her at her jump-seat station.
Sandy Heckman was looking down through a port with her eyes clamped to a pair of binoculars. She was scanning the crinkled, greenish gray surface of the Atlantic for fishing boats.
A rust-colored trawler churned a path through the water below. The jet tilted one wing toward the laboring vessel.
Abruptly Sandy snapped a switch and yanked a cabin microphone to her mouth.
"Fishing vessel Sicilian Gold, this is the U.S. Coast Guard. Your vessel is over a closed area in violation of the Magnunson Act. Charges may be filed and your catch seized later. Proceed out of the area immediately."
Grabbing a clipboard, she took down the trawler's name and went back to searching the sea.
"What's the Magnunson Act?" asked Remo.
"A congressional law regulating commercial fishing takings. When it was first enacted back in '76, it stopped foreign fishing vessels-mostly Canadian-from plundering U.S. waters. But Congress got around to making it law too late. The Canadians had made a big dent in the stocks. Now it regulates where our fishermen can go, how long they can go out and how much fish they can take. But most coastal areas are pretty much fished out now."
"It's a big ocean. Can't be that bad."
"It's a crisis. And some of these damn fishermen don't seem to be getting it. This is supposed to be a rescue mission. If I don't get some more rescues under my belt, it's back to buoy tenders for me. Or worse, Alaska and the halibut patrol."
"Halibut patrol?"
"They're scarce, too."